


Wrong

by m4xw3ll



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-31 05:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18584503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m4xw3ll/pseuds/m4xw3ll
Summary: After the end of Avengers: Endgame, Peter Parker and Harley Keener have a conversation regarding certain events.





	Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Please, I'm begging you: do not read this fic if you want to go into the movie without spoilers. Like, major spoilers. This is your last chance to turn around and walk away from this fic.

He noticed the kid some time after the memorial, when everyone else turned around to go into the house. Pepper carried her daughter, king T'Challa and his family coming up to her and giving her their condolences. All the friends and family Tony Stark had were here, yet the most important person was missing.

Peter lingered on the steps leading up to the veranda of Mr. Stark's – or Miss Potts' – house, one hand on the handrail and watching the silent lake.

Everything around here was so unlike what he ever knew about Mr. Stark. The quiet, rural area didn't fit the person he had been five years ago. A lot must have changed since then. Not him, though.

"Are you coming?" Aunt May asked, placing a hand on Peter's shoulder.

"Uh. Yeah." He nodded, then shook his head. "Yeah, I'm coming. Just … a second. You can go ahead. Please."

Aunt May looked at him for a few seconds, probably searching his face for a sign of an incoming breakdown. She frowned, but nodded after a few seconds. "Tell me when you need anything, okay?"

"Promise." Peter didn't try to tell her he was fine. He wasn't, and going inside that house might just be too much right now.

Instead he walked down the stairs again, leaving aunt May behind. Nothing he did or said around here felt right. Not even being here in the first place. The earth beneath his feet felt soft and the warm breeze harboured smells of trees and flowers. Peter felt a tingling on the back of his neck and had to suppress the urge to run for his life. Sometimes his spider-sense was really fucked.

"Hey," he instead said to the kid just a bit taller than him.

He was blond, like Peter, and thin. And he looked just as lost as Peter felt. It didn't look comfortable how he sat on the catwalk leading into the lake, one leg propped up and secured with an arm around it, the other hand dropped into the lake. His fingers drew small circles, rippling the water ever so slightly.

"What do you want?"

Peter frowned at the question but didn't let the hostile tone get to him. "I, um." Okay, maybe a little bit. "I'm Peter. Parker. Just Peter is fine. And you?"

Now the boy turned his head, but otherwise his pose didn't change a bit. He raised an eyebrow. "Everybody knows who you are."

"Yeah, well." Peter shrugged and sat down next to the other boy. He tried not to let that hostile gaze get to him. "I still don't know who you are."

"Harley."

"So you do have a name." Peter frowned and leaned forward a bit, trying to catch his reflection in the water. But all he could see were the clouds forming over their heads.

Harley didn't answer. He just continued making small circles in the lake, pointedly looking away from Peter. They sat like this for a few minutes.

Peter didn't know what to say. Clearly the other boy was in pain, even though he didn't cry. "So," he finally mustered the courage to speak up. "You knew Mr. Stark?"

Harley shrugged.

"Did he ask you to fight someone, too?"

"What are you doing, Peter?" Harley looked back at him. "I don't need your condolences. Shouldn't you be inside?" He nodded to the house.

Peter sat up straighter and squared his shoulders. He opened his mouth but lacked a good response, so he closed it again.

"Anyone ever told you that you look like you got a frog in your mouth?"

Peter raised his eyebrows. "Not to my face."

What was wrong with that guy?

He should be insulted, pouting and complaining about this guy to aunt May, but he didn't get up. This house felt so wrong on so many levels, Peter didn't want to go inside.

Instead he watched the lake and Harley. The forest surrounding this area. The clouds over their heads, moved by an ever so light breeze. Somewhere in the distance birds were cheeping, not really thinking about what was going on over here. And probably not caring, either.

"Remember that time a few years back when everyone thought Iron Man was dead?"

"Um." It took Peter a few seconds to catch up with the words. "Yeah, it was all over the news."

Harley still didn't look him in the face. His gaze seemed to wander around the lake and Peter leaned forward a bit to see his eyes. "He was holed up in my garage. Well, my mum's garage, but she never went in there anyway."

"Oh." Peter bit his lip, hands fiddling in his lap. It was probably a bad idea to ask if Harley had any superpowers, too.

"What's this?" Harley nodded to his hands and Peter looked down, instinctively covering the web-shooters he felt like wearing. After all that had happened, it should become second nature.

"Nothing."

"You're that spider-guy from YouTube."

"Spider-Man," Peter corrected him instantly, then shut his mouth after he realized he probably just gave himself away. Being startled this easily wasn't something he was particularly proud of.

"How far can you shoot them?"

It was pointless denying his alter ego now. And besides, everyone around here seemed to have some sort of superpower. "Don't know, I never tried."

"Do it," Harley prompted him. He seemed to be in a slightly better mood than a few minutes ago, but Peter wasn't too sure about it. That guy was weird.

"Shouldn't we, I dunno – go inside, maybe?"

"Come on." Harley adjusted his pose, crossing his legs on the catwalk. His shoulders slumped and he looked younger now. More hurt. Were his eyes watering?

Peter stretched out his arm and fired off a small sling of webs, watching as they flew right over the lake and disappeared somewhere in the distance. It felt hard to swallow, like a lump having formed in his throat. He couldn't even see where the web went down.

"Impressive." Harley's voice sounded hoarse. "Did Tony make them for you?"

"No, he … he improved them." Peter covered the web-shooter with his hand. "And he gave me my suit. And a chance … to become more than who I was."

Harley nodded. "I don't think I'd be here without him, either."

Peter looked down at his hands, his wrists with the web-shooters. Nobody would be here without Mr. Stark. Not just leading ordinary lives instead, but dusted and eventually forgotten. Peter didn't know how that would have played out for him. He hadn't felt any time passing. Maybe he would have been stuck in that single moment forever.

"I'm gonna miss him."

Harley didn't respond. But by the way he looked, shoulders slightly hunched and gaze fixed at some invisible point at the other end of the lake, Peter guessed they felt the same. "You know." Harley cleared his throat. "You don't look like you got a frog in your mouth. Not always."

Was that a sniffle he heard? Peter couldn't say if it came from Harley or himself, though. He covered his face with a hand but even the thought of living like this now, without Mr. Stark and still being reminded of him every day … this time, Peter was sure the sob came from his own throat.

There was an arm around his shoulders and he leaned into Harley without thinking. "I don't want him to go," he managed, his voice almost drowning out Harley's own sniffle. He locked his arms around Harley's middle, trying to give at least a bit of the same comfort he was receiving.

"Me neither."

They stayed outside for a while, arms around each other and watching the lake. Watching everything Mr. Stark had built here, his new life. And maybe it wasn't so wrong. After all, Tony Stark had been happy here.


End file.
